Читать книгу Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2) - Benton Thomas Hart - Страница 16

The revision of the Tariff, with a view to the protection of home industry, and to the establishment of what was then called, "The American System," was one of the large subjects before Congress at the session 1823-24, and was the regular commencement of the heated debates on that question which afterwards ripened into a serious difficulty between the federal government and some of the southern States. The presidential election being then depending, the subject became tinctured with party politics, in which, so far as that ingredient was concerned, and was not controlled by other considerations, members divided pretty much on the line which always divided them on a question of constructive powers. The protection of domestic industry not being among the granted powers, was looked for in the incidental; and denied by the strict constructionists to be a substantive power, to be exercised for the direct purpose of protection; but admitted by all at that time, and ever since the first tariff act of 1789, to be an incident to the revenue raising power, and an incident to be regarded in the exercise of that power. Revenue the object, protection the incident, had been the rule in the earlier tariffs: now that rule was sought to be reversed, and to make protection the object of the law, and revenue the incident. The revision, and the augmentation of duties which it contemplated, turned, not so much on the emptiness of the treasury and the necessity for raising money to fill it, as upon the distress of the country, and the necessity of creating a home demand for labor, provisions and materials, by turning a larger proportion of our national industry into the channel of domestic manufactures. Mr. Clay, the leader in the proposed revision, and the champion of the American System, expressly placed the proposed augmentation of duties on this ground; and in his main speech upon the question, dwelt upon the state of the country, and gave a picture of the public distress, which deserves to be reproduced in this View of the working of our government, both as the leading argument for the new tariff, and as an exhibition of a national distress, which those who were not cotemporary with the state of things which he described, would find it difficult to conceive or to realize. He said:

"In casting our eyes around us, the most prominent circumstance which fixes our attention and challenges our deepest regret, is the general distress which pervades the whole country. It is forced upon us by numerous facts of the most incontestable character. It is indicated by the diminished exports of native produce; by the depressed and reduced state of our foreign navigation; by our diminished commerce; by successive unthreshed crops of grain perishing in our barns for want of a market; by the alarming diminution of the circulating medium; by the numerous bankruptcies; by a universal complaint of the want of employment, and a consequent reduction of the wages of labor; by the ravenous pursuit after public situations, not for the sake of their honors, and the performance of their public duties, but as a means of private subsistence; by the reluctant resort to the perilous use of paper money; by the intervention of legislation in the delicate relation between debtor and creditor; and, above all, by the low and depressed state of the value of almost every description of the whole mass of the property of the nation, which has, on an average, sunk not less than about fifty per centum within a few years. This distress pervades every part of the Union, every class of society; all feel it, though it may be felt, at different places, in different degrees. It is like the atmosphere which surrounds us: all must inhale it, and none can escape from it. A few years ago, the planting interest consoled itself with its happy exemptions from the general calamity; but it has now reached this interest also, which experiences, though with less severity, the general suffering. It is most painful to me to attempt to sketch, or to dwell on the gloom of this picture. But I have exaggerated nothing. Perfect fidelity to the original would have authorized me to have thrown on deeper and darker hues."

Mr. Clay was the leading speaker on the part of the bill in the House of Representatives, but he was well supported by many able and effective speakers – by Messrs. Storrs, Tracy, John W. Taylor, from New-York; by Messrs. Buchanan, Todd, Ingham, Hemphill, Andrew Stewart, from Pennsylvania; by Mr. Louis McLane, from Delaware; by Messrs. Buckner F. Johnson, Letcher, Metcalfe, Trimble, White Wickliffe, from Kentucky; by Messrs. Campbell, Vance, John W. Wright, Vinton, Whittlesey, from Ohio; Mr. Daniel P. Cook, from Illinois.

Mr. Webster was the leading speaker on the other side, and disputed the universality of the distress which had been described; claiming exemption from it in New England; denied the assumed cause for it where it did exist, and attributed it to over expansion and collapse of the paper system, as in Great Britain, after the long suspension of the Bank of England; denied the necessity for increased protection to manufactures, and its inadequacy, if granted, to the relief of the country where distress prevailed; and contested the propriety of high or prohibitory duties, in the present active and intelligent state of the world, to stimulate industry and manufacturing enterprise. He said:

"Within my own observation, there is no cause for such gloomy and terrifying a representation. In respect to the New England States, with the condition of which I am best acquainted, they present to me a period of very general prosperity. Supposing the evil then to be a depression of prices, and a partial pecuniary pressure; the next inquiry is into the causes of that evil. A depreciated currency existed in a great part of the country – depreciated to such a degree as that, at one time, exchange between the centre and the north was as high as twenty per cent. The Bank of the United States was instituted to correct this evil; but, for causes which it is not now necessary to enumerate, it did not for some years bring back the currency of the country to a sound state. In May, 1819, the British House of Commons, by an unanimous vote, decided that the resumption of cash payments by the Bank of England should not be deferred beyond the ensuing February (it had then been in a state of suspension near twenty-five years). The paper system of England had certainly communicated an artificial value to property. It had encouraged speculation, and excited overtrading. When the shock therefore came, and this violent pressure for money acted at the same moment on the Continent and in England, inflated and unnatural prices could be kept up no longer. A reduction took place, which has been estimated to have been at least equal to a fall of thirty, if not forty, per cent. The depression was universal; and the change was felt in the United States severely, though not equally so in every part of them. About the time of these foreign events, our own bank system underwent a change; and all these causes, in my view of the subject, concurred to produce the great shock which took place in our commercial cities, and through many parts of the country. The year 1819 was a year of numerous failures, and very considerable distress, and would have furnished far better grounds than exist at present for that gloomy representation which has been presented. Mr. Speaker (Clay) has alluded to the strong inclination which exists, or has existed, in various parts of the country, to issue paper money, as a proof of great existing difficulties. I regard it rather as a very productive cause of those difficulties; and we cannot fail to observe, that there is at this moment much the loudest complaint of distress precisely where there has been the greatest attempt to relieve it by a system of paper credit. Let us not suppose that we are beginning the protection of manufactures by duties on imports. Look to the history of our laws; look to the present state of our laws. Consider that our whole revenue, with a trifling exception, is collected from the custom-house, and always has been; and then say what propriety there is in calling on the government for protection, as if no protection had heretofore been afforded. On the general question, allow me to ask if the doctrine of prohibition, as a general doctrine, be not preposterous? Suppose all nations to act upon it: they would be prosperous, then, according to the argument, precisely in the proportion in which they abolished intercourse with one another. The best apology for laws of prohibition and laws of monopoly, will be found in that state of society, not only unenlightened, but sluggish, in which they are most generally established. Private industry in those days, required strong provocatives, which government was seeking to administer by these means. Something was wanted to actuate and stimulate men, and the prospects of such profits as would, in our times, excite unbounded competition, would hardly move the sloth of former ages. In some instances, no doubt, these laws produced an effect which, in that period, would not have taken place without them. (Instancing the protection to the English woollen manufactures in the time of the Henrys and the Edwards). But our age is wholly of a different character, and its legislation takes another turn. Society is full of excitement: competition comes in place of monopoly; and intelligence and industry ask only for fair play and an open field."

With Mr. Webster were numerous and able speakers on the side of free trade: From his own State, Mr. Baylies; from New-York, Mr. Cambreling; from Virginia, Messrs. Randolph, Philip P. Barbour, John S. Barbour, Garnet, Alexander Smythe, Floyd, Mercer, Archer, Stevenson, Rives, Tucker, Mark Alexander; from North Carolina, Messrs. Mangum, Saunders, Spaight, Lewis Williams, Burton, Weldon N. Edwards; from South Carolina, Messrs. McDuffie, James Hamilton, Poinsett; from Georgia, Messrs. Forsyth, Tatnall, Cuthbert, Cobb; from Tennessee, Messrs. Blair, Isaaks, Reynolds; from Louisiana, Mr. Edward Livingston; from Alabama, Mr. Owen; from Maryland, Mr. Warfield; from Mississippi, Mr. Christopher Rankin.

The bill was carried in the House, after a protracted contest of ten weeks, by the lean majority of five – 107 to 102 – only two members absent, and the voting so zealous that several members were brought in upon their sick couches. In the Senate the bill encountered a strenuous resistance. Mr. Edward Lloyd, of Maryland, moved to refer it to the committee on finance – a motion considered hostile to the bill; and which was lost by one vote – 22 to 23. It was then, on the motion of Mr. Dickerson, of New Jersey, referred to the committee on manufactures; a reference deemed favorable to the bill, and by which committee it was soon returned to the Senate without any proposed amendment. It gave rise to a most earnest debate, and many propositions of amendment, some of which, of slight import, were carried. The bill itself was carried by the small majority of four votes – 25 to 21. The principal speakers in favor of the bill were: Messrs. Dickerson, of New Jersey; D'Wolf, of Rhode Island; Holmes, of Maine; E. M. Johnson, of Kentucky; Lowrie, of Pennsylvania; Talbot, of Kentucky; Van Buren. Against it the principal speakers were: Messrs. James Barbour and John Taylor, of Virginia (usually called John Taylor of Caroline); Messrs. Branch, of North Carolina; Hayne, of South Carolina; Henry Johnson and Josiah Johnston, of Louisiana; Kelly and King, of Alabama; Rufus King, of New-York; James Lloyd, of Massachusetts; Edward Lloyd and Samuel Smith, of Maryland; Macon, of North Carolina; Van Dyke, of Delaware. The bill, though brought forward avowedly for the protection of domestic manufactures, was not entirely supported on that ground. An increase of revenue was the motive with some, the public debt being still near ninety millions, and a loan of five millions being authorized at that session. An increased protection to the products of several States, as lead in Missouri and Illinois, hemp in Kentucky, iron in Pennsylvania, wool in Ohio and New-York, commanded many votes for the bill; and the impending presidential election had its influence in its favor. Two of the candidates, Messrs. Adams and Clay, were avowedly for it; General Jackson, who voted for the bill, was for it, as tending to give a home supply of the articles necessary in time of war, and as raising revenue to pay the public debt. Mr. Crawford was opposed to it; and Mr. Calhoun had been withdrawn from the list of presidential candidates, and become a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. The Southern planting States were extremely dissatisfied with the passage of the bill, believing that the new burdens upon imports which it imposed fell upon the producers of the exports, and tended to enrich one section of the Union at the expense of another. The attack and support of the bill took much of a sectional aspect; Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia, and some others being nearly unanimous against it. Pennsylvania, New-York, Ohio, Kentucky being nearly unanimous for it. Massachusetts, which up to this time had a predominating interest in commerce, voted all, except one member, against it. With this sectional aspect, a tariff for protection also began to assume a political aspect, being taken under the care of the party since discriminated as Whig, which drew from Mr. Van Buren a sagacious remark, addressed to the manufacturers themselves; that if they suffered their interests to become identified with a political party (any one), they would share the fate of that party, and go down with it whenever it sunk. Without the increased advantages to some States, the pendency of the presidential election, and the political tincture which the question began to receive, the bill would not have passed – so difficult is it to prevent national legislation from falling under the influence of extrinsic and accidental causes. The bill was approved by Mr. Monroe – a proof that that careful and strict constructionist of the Constitution did not consider it as deprived of its revenue character by the degree of protection which it extended.